Don Pinette Flooring

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Don has an awesome team of guys. Each one of them were total gentleman and they know what they are doing. They worked extremely hard and diligently, and our flooring installation was beautifully done. They were mostly on time and they worked their tails off to finish the job in the time they had available. That said, I did have some things I wish went a bit differently. Here are some details about our experience--both pros and minor cons.
1. Don kindly checked out our wood ahead of time and cautioned us about not getting quite the top quality product we thought we were. This was very much appreciated and something I felt was high integrity. We then knew what we were getting and he problem-solved how to install it most durably and effectively.
2. Don also advised us not to get the insulation padding beneath the hardwood floors, as he said it really made no noticeable difference to the sound of walking on the floors. We were happy to listen and save the $3,000. Unfortunately, our floors are now so loud--you can hear every single step of anyone, anywhere in the house--upstairs or down. Not yet sure how to rectify this. And maybe this really wouldn't have been any different had we used the padding. I have no way of checking at this point. But I'm thinking it couldn't have hurt and kind of wishing I'd spent the extra $3k after all.
3. Don was very fair on negotiating price with us. He was also flexible on the dates and squeezed us in when our closing date for our new house shifted. This was very appreciated. The challenge was that they were only able to give us 4 days on a job Don defined as 5. But he said he wanted the job and promised they'd get the floors done on time. And they did. It was hard work and happened on a VERY hot week at the end of the summer--when we had not yet installed A/C. So, I fully understood their desire to be done with our house. Working in that heat was miserable for all of us. That said, I'm still a customer that wants to be treated with politeness and respect for the money I'm paying them. And on the last day, Don lost my future business when he left with his team at 3pm when the finishing work was not fully complete. While the floors were done (and beautifully so), most of the doors (some 20-odd of them) were NOT re-hung and some of the trim was not put back on. As they had begun to clean up, I mentioned this to Don who responded with something to the effect of: "Well, your doors suck and I've already had one guy working on them all day when that wasn't even in my quote." (If doors are not in my quote, then shouldn't that have been discussed with me prior to the project beginning?) He then implied that I should be grateful he even got out job done in 4 days at all since it was really a 5 day project. Being that it was only 3pm, and they hadn't come until 9 or 10am that morning, I found it hard to believe that the other 4 men couldn't have helped the one guy who'd been assigned to the doors and finished all of them before end of day to *fully* complete the job. Thus, despite all the good work prior, this choice combined with Don's dismissive and righteous attitude about *his* responsibility on the subject really disappointed me. And, just to be clear, the pieces of uninstalled trim WERE included in the quote.
4. There was one 8x8 area that we'd put in the quote for the flooring (which is tallied by square footage) which we eventually decided to leave bare to be tiled in the future. Interestingly, Don never gave me a refund for this area. It would have amounted to a few hundred dollars. Granted I didn't ask for it. I guess I didn't feel I should have had to ask, and after the way I was treated over the doors on the last day, I didn't really even want to talk with Don again.
5. My advice for home owners looking to get floors installed: Just be really clear about what you are paying for and what you aren't. There are a LOT of factors involved in getting floors installed. For example, in addition to the above issues, I had talked with Don specifically about re-doing the two sets of carpeted stairs with new hardwood treads, and I assumed it was built into the quote, but it wasn't. It was an oversight on both of our parts given that I'd asked for it and he hadn't included it--and I'd mistakenly assumed it was in there without being specifically delineated or confirming it. When he and his team came, it was a shock to me that the stairs wouldn't be done. He apologized for the mis-communication and explained he didn't have time to squeeze them in either during that week. So, just be super crystal clear on all questions. And remember to ensure the reinstallation of doors AND trim are covered as well as disposal of old flooring and clean-up.
6. Overall, I would recommend Don and his team, because they are all very good at what they do. Good contractors can be hard to find, and these guys really are skilled. Hopefully, Don was just having a grumpy day and his behavior wasn't typical. Unfortunately, it lost my business permanently.

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Great, no problems

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They did an excellent job on refinishing the floors, and were willing to patch up some stains on another floor without insisting on doing the entire floor. Results not outstanding, but way better than with stains.

Great. We used this vendor in 2013 and after an appliance delivery, our floors has 2 very deep scratches/dents in them. Don Pinette sent his guy back out to resand the floors and reapply polyurethane. The floors look brand new again.

Don was very professional as was his crew. He was even there to help lay the floor! The workmanship was high quality. I don't think anyone could go wrong with using Don. And we did a lot of research and shopping around.

Don arrived at precisely noon on the day of the quotation. We had a nice conversation about the job as he measured the rooms for the estimate. Don prepared the estimate on site and we negotiated which items I would do myself and which items his crew would do. He emailed me the final quotation before he left the house. We discussed the installation date, and to my surprise he was available on the exact date that worked best for our family.
On the date of the installation, Don and his crew arrived at exactly 9:00, the time we had discussed. He listened attentively to my concerns about specific details of the installation, and described exactly how he would address each of these concerns. I then saw him gather his crew and discuss these issues with them so they knew exactly what to do. I am a very detail oriented do-it-yourselfer who didn't have the time to do this installation, so I greatly appreciated his attention to these details. The job extended into a second day, and again the crew was very prompt, even arriving a few minutes early and waiting in the driveway until exactly 9:00 to ring the doorbell.
Regarding the installation, Don's crew installed a 1/2" x 5" hand scraped engineered hardwood floor over approximately 740 square feet, covering three main rooms, a foyer, and closet. The installation started at the front door and continued through the back of the house. The seam at the front door was perfect, just as he had described. The alignment of the floor through the house was perfect, even going around a wall to end up perfect at a side porch door. All of the seams were tight, with no gaps that would be evidence of poor workmanship. The transition strips with the kitchen floor were cut perfectly around some complex baseboard molding. They left the house clean when they were done, removing all of the scrap material but leaving anything that was still usable. The crew actually removed some leftover transition pieces not needed for the installation but that I wanted to keep so I could use them on another room with the remaining flooring, so I emailed Don and the crew found and returned them a couple of days later, which was very nice.
I happened to be at a home improvement store a couple of weeks after the installation, and one of the crew passed by me in an aisle. Having recognized me just after he walked by, he actually turned around and came back to talk with me about what I thought of the floors and just some small talk. The quality of work performed, and this brief aisle meeting tells me that Don and his crew really care about the work they do, that they want to do a good job, and to me suggests they did the kind of work in my home that they would do in their own homes.

The men worked hard, made sure that everything was clean, and took pride in getting the details right. I would definitely recommend Don and his staff, and plan to use them to install stone tile as well.

Excellent. Showed up when promised and worked very efficiently. He and staff were very professional and had great attention to detail e.g. the baseboard joints were superb.

I received a quote for the work from Don Pinette. After comparing to a few other quotes, I chose Don because he seemed to know exactly what was needed. He had his tile man Danny, do the work over 2 days. As I said above Danny was excellent, except that he was late in arriving both days. Danny worked well in choosing the proper materials and colors of grout for this job. It needed to match the grout in the rest of the bathroom. Don was good in adjusting his original quote to match work actually performed.

It was a great experience. Don showed up well before the tiling was to be done to make sure the carpenters built a sturdy sub-floor. You could tell he really cares about doing excellent quality work. His crew were all very hard workers and respectful of our property. Don gave us accurate quotes and timelines. We couldn't be happier with any part of working with him. We'd hire him again in a heartbeat.

Don gave us a exact estimate quickly. His installation team worked hard and the job was done quirkly. About 1000 sf wood floors, installed foor tile and carpetted 2 staircases all in a little over 5 days. Charged fair prices for things like moving some of the furniture to doing some custom work on cabinet facings and appliances. His team were all friendly.